Wednesday, April 27, 2011

First off, for those of you who celebrate, I hope you had a Happy Easter!
I wanted to do a post on that, but time got away. Maybe later in the week, I'll do a recap.

Secondly, I can't believe that I had over 1000 visitors since the first day I blogged. I know it's not much by some people's standards, but *gosh* it's a lot for me. Keeping creativity in my life on a consistent basis has been a lot of fun ... for me, for my kids, and hopefully for others. Thanks to everyone who checks in, reads my ramblings and especially to those who comment.

This is what I've worked on in the past few days. A bit more work on our family painting. We did a bit more stencil work. Today I drew a few flowers for the kids to paint with Acrylics. Hopefully tomorrow we get a chance to do it. My kids wanted to work on it right away, but my energy level was low and I just couldn't get myself to get all the painting stuff, put a painting shirt on everyone, mix all the colors and then clean it all up. I think the thought of cleaning up was really what turned me off. For some reason, no matter how little we paint, the paint goes everywhere ... fingers, hair, nose, toes, floors ....

Jana Darrington, a lovely lady, who took the course with me, is helping with a fundraiser for the Idaho Health Care Association. She is trying to donate 100 She Arts and has asked for help from all She Art students. So I thought I'd help with that project. How do you like this one?

It's going to be hard to part with this. I love her and her boots so!

I have also been journaling. Sad, but true, in the past couple of weeks I have accumulated more half done pages than I have actually finished. Welllll ... I actually just finished one the other day and have about 10 pages that are waiting for the final details. But, I really like this page. It really speaks to me.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

I want to show you a bit of home made Birthday goodness. A few weeks ago it was Jasmine's Birthday. She is our social one who usually likes to invite "everybody" and celebrate at truely active places with jumpy houses and such. Last year though we celebrated Alex's at home and I made some hand made decorations, which enchanted Jasmine.

So this year she asked to have a Tinkerbell party at home. I complied.

Thank goodness it was Tinkerbell, because we could reuse Alex's Buzz Lightyear inspired pompoms :) They took me forever to make and I was happy that they were good for another party!

I made garlands to define the party area. My cricut was useful to cut out little critters and flowers. I also made some flowers out of fabric. Eventually the paper shapes will go into Jasmine scrapbook and most of the fabric flowers have already been used for the Thank You cards.

Foam stickers were used to make this garland. I stuck a few butterfly clips and Tinkerbell confetti here and there to make it more interesting.

The best thing, in my opinion, was the Birthday ice cream cake. Okay it was a bit crooked (haha), but I couldn't believe how easy and cheap it was (less than $10 without the decoration) AND how much everybody loved it. The cake below was made for Jasmine's Birthday-day. I used the same recipe to make ice cream cupcakes for the Birthday party. Every kid had 2-4 cupcakes. They totally cleaned the tray. In the past I have always ordered pretty cakes for $50-80. And I always had left over which no one ever wanted to eat.

Here is my little girl. 6 years old!

Well, the favors weren't handmade, but I think they looked cute :)

Oh yes, there were boys at the party and they got to wear Batman masks, decorate Batman capes and bring Batman favors home :) I cut the masks out of felt and the capes out of polyester fabric. I hardly stitched a thing - just the elastic for mask and the hooks on the capes.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Ah time, time where do you go?
It's been busy, busy. But I've been trying to stay creative.

My kids and I have started a 24"x36" canvas. Crazy! I know! We've never even attempted a small canvas before. But Jasmine and her Kinder class have painted mushrooms on a large canvas for her school's auction and she was very proud that she got to paint 2 mushrooms. It is what led me to this idea: to let the kids paint with me guiding them ... and maybe quietly going over things as needed. If all goes well, we'll hang it over our sofa which is in dire need of "something"!

It's going to be a mixed media painting. So our first step: spray glimmer mist over beautiful stencils. I already love it so.

I've worked on a few journaling pages. All, but one, are half done. Typical me.
This one I have been working on while the kids played in the playground and I just felt the need to be productive.

Oh and yes, I have started another e-course last week called Big Dreams, Small Wonders. It is a course, that I'm hoping will take me one step further in my creative life, which is to hopefully start an etsy shop this year?
I have started a journal for it, too. More on that later.

Ah time, time where do you go?
It's been busy, busy. But I've been trying to stay creative.

My kids and I have started a 24"x36" canvas. Crazy! I know! We've never even attempted a small canvas before. But Jasmine and her Kinder class have painted mushrooms on a large canvas for her school's auction and she was very proud that she got to paint 2 mushrooms. It is what led me to this idea: to let the kids paint with me guiding them ... and maybe quietly going over things as needed. If all goes well, we'll hang it over our sofa which is in dire need of "something"!

It's going to be a mixed media painting. So our first step: spray glimmer mist over beautiful stencils. I already love it so.

I've worked on a few journaling pages. All, but one, are half done. Typical me.
This one I have been working on while the kids played in the playground and I just felt the need to be productive.

Oh and yes, I have started another e-course last week called Big Dreams, Small Wonders. It is a course, that I'm hoping will take me one step further in my creative life, which is to hopefully start an etsy shop this year?
I have started a journal for it, too. More on that later.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I love Wednesdays. It's early pick-up in school and we don't have any after school activities. It's the day we mostly hang out at home. Today my kids painted wind chimes - one of Jasmine's many Birthday presents. There were two in the box and she was very generous today and let her little brother paint one.

It became very serious very fast. They are usually active and goofy and loud :) So I just loved watching them concentrate.

Today I didn't take this opportunity to work on my own things. I just watched (and reminded them to wash and dry their brushes before changing color). I was amazed to see those little hands work.

But can I just say, I miss those lovable, chubby, and clumsy hands when they were babies & toddlers!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Here is an entry from my old journal - which I have pondered over for weeks: is it finished yet? Well, over the weekend I added a few rub-ons and finally added the text. Sometimes when I ponder over something too long, I feel more stress than enjoyment, so I am proclaiming this to be finished!
It was inspired by Christy Tomlinson's She Art class.

Note: I read Christy Tomlinson is going to be a Creative Partner at Spark 3. Oh how I wish I could attend it! It sounds and looks so fun and exciting and beautiful! But it's going to be in October in Utah. How come there is nothing ever happening in California?

Ah well, I started my new journal.

I have decided I enjoy the mind mapping technique. I must do more of it.

I haven't decided what cover to make. Sew a collage of fabric? Paint over cardboard? Knit a cover over cardboard? Too many possibilities!

Friday, April 1, 2011

To me it's a sort of mood board/art collection/web organizer all in one.

I can pin any photo on the web to my pinterest board, so that I can find it again easily. Photos can be beautiful artwork, which inspire me, or also representatives of tutorials/shops/blogs/etc I love.